I have never
agreed with the general sentiment that “the book was better than the movie.”
This has always seemed a meaningless assertion to me. Books and movies might
set out to accomplish a similar task – telling a story – but the ways they go
about it could hardly be less similar. Books have the space to fill in details
you can’t possibly bring to light in a film. A reader is privy to setting
descriptions, histories, character development and inner thoughts that often
can’t be represented on the screen. A movie does the imagining for the viewer.
Whereas a book allows a reader to visualize images evoked by the words on the
page, a film director, cinematographer, writer, etc., present their personal
visualizations, which most likely don’t mesh with yours. What we need to test
is whether or not the film adaptation of a book is 1) some sort of faithful
adaptation and 2) good on its own terms by the standards laid out through
cinema history. It doesn’t matter if the movie tells the same story in the same
exact way as the book. All that matters is that the movie works. Does it draw
you in? Do you learn enough about the characters to care about their fates? Is
the story moving?
